The pound stretchers

Jarvis Cocker

If a single celebrity can be credited with transforming the thrift brand into a fashionable lifestyle statement, it should be Jarvis Cocker. In the mid-90s, Jarvis rode the vanguard of chic thrift, in a range of second-hand suits, tired tank tops and faded shirts with bedraggled cuffs.

The fact that he almost certainly embraced thrifty living out of necessity rather than aesthetic sensibility, only added to the whole effect. There's nothing more compelling than authentic thrift with flair.

Jarvis's thrift ethic is all-encompassing. He once brought a suit from a second-hand shop, and discovered some library stubs for books about death in the pocket, along with a ticket 'for some kind of Philharmonia concert'. He made up a story around it, about 'this bloke who found out he was terminally ill and splashed out on a ticket for his favourite piece of music'. Thrift is also, clearly, a political issue for Cocker. Pulp's breakthrough hit 'Common People' was a homage to pseudo thrift. Or, as Jarvis said at the time, it's about 'a certain voyeurism on the part of the middle classes, a certain romanticism of working-class culture, and a desire to slum it a bit'.